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Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts
You learned early to stand next to the back door, prepared to make a quick exit. So many things could have triggered that final flight-- the constant haystack slumping your camel back was so heavy. what dingy wonders
have cramped this chambered organ, a billowing, dust-caked black, for the dear widow’s heart gave out much too soon : Be cute
Don’t cry Keep quiet Do as you’re told Grow up Don’t be shy Make them proud Work hard Dodge bullies Pass exams Best days of Your life. Get a degree Don’t sleep around Find a job Look pretty Get promoted Save money Get a house Keep in touch Find yourself But not in a bottle. when I was young I played
with my plastic pink palace constructing a monarchy, and a class system at five, determining who would have the pretty bedroom with the window who would be a princess who would cook, with barefoot plastic feet in a small fake kitchen near tiny plastic rats The female dolls wore dresses that snapped off their bodies revealing clothes less pretty and poofy, I married them off to possessive plastic men who fought wars for the king I had a playset with a carriage and white horses, the driver came holding a plastic whip When I was a child,
I used to sing to the sky, I never thought anyone was listening, Or that somewhere up there, Gabriel was Leaning over too far To hear, after too many beers, Until he dropt Face-first to the floor. The pages they write Will never tell of how I Wiped cuts and scrapes From your mass of shapes Because it’s not a form They understand. as a little girl,
i went to lick the sugar drip of every blue vein. born from satin swirls & 7-eleven cigs the scent of strangers – lure & mist, fills me through a filter. the ladies in the band; i wore guitar pick necklaces & sang bob dylan for a week. Trigger warning: mentions of blood
Every night I die and I am Reborn again I shred pieces of you The ones you hate about yourself It’s a painful metamorphosis Shredding my feathers and fears Bleeding you out Droplets of blue In the morning when The dawn kisses the sky And the morning birds hum Our song I am reborn again I am whole again I
I sing when the storm comes, Because the fields and streams and wind farms That fly past the window Need to dance. Everything becomes witchcraft Where there is rain, And on the other side of Thunder claps The sky cries for me, My Daughter. have you ever seen a butterfly
go on a rampage? it’s a sight for sore eyes or a sorry sight for sympathetic eyes her picturesque wings fluttering rapidly in the wind her delicate body swaying trashing to escape and the giant roams with his butterfly catchers swatting, seizing, snatching prying, abducting, invading but if only the butterfly just submitted accepted her inferiority trusted the cycle of life relished in how she was wanted Part I (Yours)
Each time you lead me to the box, I get in: Willingly, even gratefully. I close my eyes and hear the locks click. The room begins to spin. I wait. But you just shrug, And drop your hacksaw to the floor, Then walk offstage-- Your arm around the latest bunny Pulled from your hat-- As I beg you: Either let me out, Or pick up that saw and finish the job. Coward! And you watch her, keenly
Going from one to another Seeking for advice on how to navigate the cold and unwelcoming waters ahead of her Others had gone and found their different ways to the other side Through these same waters But she was still dithering Unsure and unwilling to take the dive Watching others before and behind her, go on, before her Through the cold, unwelcoming waters Being the age you were when we met,
brings me to the door of reflection. A door that’s been locked for some time now. Unlocking rust, to a dark room with cobwebs covering your security and masculinity. Tinted windows and empty walls. I remember the shiny items you used to lure me in here. Now I understand why you pursued me, reaching for any light to steal. for thirty years,
i’ve noticed a ritual around the fine silk nightgowns i fold with precision and the sullied, red fevers of blood moons three times a year now, i let myself slip from the sick air of sleeping children and fall silent – a lost pilgrim swallowed by night, choking on lilacs Do you think you could save me
from the darkness and decline? Bring me back to what I was, beaming like sunshine? Shall you be the white knight come to save the cursed girl with lips kissed with strawberries and a crown of golden curls? What disappointment will you find, when no such creature exists? When you are robbed of the glory of a true loves kiss. there was once a body here,
a woman, pressed off the land with pointed sticks. prickled with shining teeth embers and words filled with hate. i have half the heart to hope she melted, turned herself to rain to nourish the plants. maybe she offered her body as rations to be dragged off and licked clean by the loving creatures she freed from village traps. All right, kids. Class dismissed.
Time to join the working class. What you learned in class stays in the classroom. No need to find the volume of cones or the inverse of cosine when you should’ve learned how to cosign, to bow to bosses and cut your losses. Know that the classroom is not where class ends. That class permeates the atmosphere like the stench of foul cheese. That class clings to the walls like stubborn blood stains. That class is a construct caging clarity and keeping everyone in a certain class. at this rate
the hair on my head is more likely to be shaven than the hair adorning my legs, or hiding in the soft underbelly of my shoulders. what kind of woman am i? i miss being a child. i miss having my hair brushed and braided. but then i remember i can have my scalp scratched like a dog, and the prickles on top of my skull can still be laboriously licked clean by a cat who loves me and doesn't know a thing of showers or shampoo or beauty standards. I’ve been a not-so-serious girl, a pleasure to teach,
avant garde save this sink plug and plastic lavender on chains around my neck. I’ve been a comedy performance, a holed-up critique of the teenage girl, a series of vignettes about the same self-esteemed mistakes flummoxed in the grim light after staring back at the pale, watery eyes of the male gaze. I’ve been a starfish splayed on pool tiles, lovely and utterly sun drunk. I’ve been a clutch of flowers balled in a fist, a recommended song sitting filing my nails into pixels on a playlist or a desperate obsession for a thigh gap like a medieval conquest. I’ve borne the flame of intensity carried like kindling in my weak-willed heart: easily pleased, easily gullible, easily lit up by our own frail stars. Why wait until retirement to study those winking glints of inferno? We carry so much of their gaseous chuckles in our own pockets, our minds, further afield. Our music, our taste, to touch and know we are stuffed with the hope that humanity can at least be honest. I’ve been a graceful endeavour, a stifled laugh, never regretful of the blaze of it all, this inferno of desire. Don’t forget the world,
Where you most matter. Beneath the rough wood-- Windows that only shatter. The pieces fit so seamlessly, As if they were never touched. Infinitely and intimately, The gold rush has just begun. There is no map and certainly no treasure, For the knots have been buried For years and years, Under misread measures. They tell me to be at peace.
They don’t notice that I am in pieces. Regardless of the blood that drips from my lips. Regardless of the bruises that shackle my wrists. They wrestle control from bloodied fingers, and crack my knees against the floor. They wish to strip me of my strength, and trap me in my voice. They wish for me to cease, gagging me with dirtied money. They think it will stop me, stuffed mouth unable to speak. |
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